Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-11-05
A BORDER TOWN.
KANSAS AS IT WAS ONLY A SCORE
OF YEARS AGO.
How the Beautiful City of the Plains
Came to be Founded-The Result of a
Quarrel and Fear of Observation-Disclosures
of One Man in the Early Sixties.

For years the Western border has
been like the Irishman's flea of tradi-
tion-eXtremely hard to locate. One
year it is here, and the next further on.
The resistless advance of progress Is
pushing it onward, till, like the Indian,
the border is almost pushed out of ex-
istence, and has little place except in
romance.
Scarce a dozen years ago the greater
portion of Kansas was believed to be the
abiding place of lawlessness and open to
the incursions of Indians, outlaws and
other undesirable characters. Now, OF
the borderland of the last decade there
remains scarce trace. In No Mans
Land, the Neutral Strip" west of the
Indian Territory, and south of the west
ern portion of Kansas, without the pale
of the law, the exciting days when the
desperate reigned still exist. But only
for a little while. Soon the march of
civilization will supplant the long haired
law-breaker, the white-fingered gambler
and the painted wanton with the hard
handed homesteader, the shrewd, quiet
business man and the matronly house
wife.
The tourist visiting Abilene, with its
10000 inhabitants, and seeing the pros
porous little city, with street cars water
works, electric lights and many other adj
juncts of metropolitan life, would with
difficulty be made to believe that, not
many years ago, that orderly, peace-lov-
ing city was the banner "hard" town of
the border.
The tales of the "old-timers" sound
like pages from the pens of dime novel
lists.
Early in the "sixties" little cluster of
perhaps half dozen log cabins marked
the present site of Abilene. Their
presence there seemed more due to acct
dent than anything else. From a wagon
train crossing the plains few families
dropped out, owing to quarrels and dis
satisfactions. Not caring to return to
their starting point and face the ridicule
of their former neighbors, they cast
about for suitable location for what
they then intended to be only tempo
rary settlement. They finally made the
happy choice of the beautiful stretch of
Short distance north Of the Smoky
Hill river. There they established the
nucleus of what to-day is known as the
Beautiful City of the Plains" Then,
coming from no one knows where, "Old
Man Jones'" as he was called, made his
appS4Ance and erected small log build
ing m which he sold groceries and
whiskey. This was the humble forerun-
ner of the handsome trade palaces of to-
day, several of which rival in architectural
beauty those of metropolitan cities many
times the size of Abilene.
Now and then a family was added to
the little settlement, and, after while,
another store, called the "Pioneer Store"
was built. Little activity was shown till
the building of the Kansas Pacific rail
road, several years later. Then the town
began to expand trit1e and take upon
itself airs of Importance.
To one man is mostly due the lively
and prosperous, though wild and wicked
days that followed-Joseph G. Mccoy,
the man who knew more of cattle and
cattle interest than any one else on the
DOIuCT. llc saw III aUllCllc IIc IlOSJ Ut
sirable point in the West for the ship
ment of the vast herds of cattle driven
from Texas and the Indian Territory.
He set to work to defect from numerous
other points the entire cattle shipment
of the southern country" and to bring
it all to Abilene. He was successful in
securing large portion of it, Cir
culars, lauding the advantages of Alb
ilene as a shipping point, were lib
orally distributed in the Indian Terri
tory and Texas, and agents were sent
among the Seattle kings" Eastern
buyers were informed of the immense
number of cattle that would arrive at a
certain date. The Eastern papers were
full of glowing accounts of the import
ance of the new cattle capital. Abilenes
notoriety soon became widespread and
new corners arrived in large numbers.
Many of them were legitimate buyers,
spectators or laborers, but far more
were the riff-raff of civilization.
Every day witnessed dozens of new
arrivals-human vultures. most of them
and good citizens were soon outnum-
bered by outlaws, gamblers and coughs"
Saloons, dance-houses and gambling dens
sprang up as if by magic, and so numer-
Gus were they that the buildings devoted
to base and illegal purposes were vastly
in the majority over those put to legiti-
mate uses. All this was done in the ex-
pectation of the coming of the cattle in
terests. 1t was banking on the futures"
with vengeance.
Soon the cattle began to pour in by
thousands, and Abilene sprang into life
as in night. Leadville in its palmiest
days, or Beaver City to-day, never wit
messed wilder scenes of debauchery and
lawlessness than followed. Business
men would not bring their wives from
their Eastern homes, and good women
were sadly in the minority in Abilene.
Lawlessness ran riot and waxed intoler-
ant and intolerable. The town seemed
practically given over to thugs, gam
blers and wantons. Cowboys, with
a full cargo of the villainous
'valley tan" of the saloons on
board, often rode at full speed up and
down the streets, yelling, curslng and
shooting. If citizen who was so I'M
fortunate as to be in the street at the
time escaped being shot by the wild
riders or run over by the equally wild
ponies, he congratulated himself for hav-
ing been born beneath a lucky star
Drunken cowboys and desperadoes often
rode in at the open doors of stores OF
saloons and shot to pieces any breakable
articles they happened to see. II the
proprietor objected he was treated In the
same manner. Street fights were too